Original Story Published by: Wirtten by Lucia Mbomio and translated by Lisa G Khanna for Global Voices
Photo Source: GlobalVoices
(Above) Juliana Mbengono: “If there were no differences between women and men then no one would think of me as a feminist, but given the inequalities that we experience I feel obliged to reclaim my rights and I do it through my literature.“
Juliana Mbengono Elá Avomo is a journalism student, an assistant director of a daycare center, and a Literary Bud (in Spanish Capullos Literarios, meaning cocoon, flowerbud, and also jerk in colloquial Spanish). She says so herself. She founded a collective of poets in Equatorial Guinea together with two classmates in 2015, and they chose the name Capullos Literarios because they are novices and they “haven't yet been recognized as writers. They stay in the shadows but they love to write, they put everything they have into it and they put it to use every day.”
Buds are shy by nature, so it's hard for them to recognize themselves when they have started to blossom. That's why Juliana keeps herself humble, despite having won several literary competitions, having gotten two of the theatrical plays she wrote to be performed, and having become the coordinator of Crazy for Culture (Locos Por Cultura – LPC- , in Spanish) in the capital city of Malabo. The organization brings together artists who work with different modalities from around the country.
According to Juliana, the goal of Crazy for Culture is to “promote the creation of spaces for young people to interact, with the aim to improve their artistic abilities and promote social leadership.”
The organization doesn't have a set number of members or artistic communities. At the moment, they are composed of Literary Buds; theatre group Speaking and Biyemyema; visual arts collectives EG-Pencil and Hangart; photography group Photos With Lyrics; and many independent artists such as Eusebio, who does portraits, or Mariano Ebana Edu (also called Black Bey), Benjamín Ndong (Jamin Dogg) and Lil Jojo, who are singer-songwriters and rappers.
